Chapter 332: Delaying Them to Death
At the end of the first half, Leandri was drenched in sweat as he tried his best to keep the goal. He sat on the bench and gasped for breath as soon as he returned to the locker room. The white gauze on his brow bone was now gray, and a little blood was slowly seeping out of it.
The team doctor and coaching staff were most concerned about him at this moment. They hurriedly treated Leandri's wound. Only then did everyone see clearly how big the wound on Leandri's brow bone was. The wound, which was the length of a finger, was covered with stitches.
Leandri lay down and let the team doctor treat him. With the sweat invading him, Leandri could no longer bear it as he did at the beginning and frowned unconsciously.
There was silence in the locker room. It seemed like every national team game in recent years was a torture. Although they had begun to change under Perotegui, the effect would not appear so quickly. Any team with a stronger level would target their weaknesses.
Leandri touched the dry gauze on his head, and after watching the head coach arrange the tactics, almost no one spoke, and finally he spoke.
“I think we can win.”
Everyone looked up to see who dared to lend money in front of Leandri, but when they looked up, it was their goalkeeper himself.
"I won't take out a loan. So what if Brazil is ranked third in the world now? Didn't we rank first before? So what if Brazil's offensive tempo is so fast now? Didn't we let others not even touch the ball before?"
"Every time I play for the national team, I open my phone and see everyone saying that our dynasty has collapsed, that we have no desire to win, and that we have entered our darkest hour. Damn the darkest hour!" Leandri suddenly swore in the locker room, which made everyone look closely at their goalkeeper.
Leandri looked at everyone one by one and said, "I play football to win, don't you? I'm tired of losing in the past few years. I just want to return to the peak moment of winning the championship. I just want to hold the trophy. I wish to make all the games in the world lose suspense!"
"So what if we lose the ball, so what if Brazil can attack? As long as I get the ball I will pass it forward, you guys try every way to score goals and don't be afraid of losing the ball. I'm putting it here, today I won't let Brazil score a goal even if I die in front of the goal. If we can't score in 90 minutes, I will drag it to overtime. If the overtime can't decide the outcome, then we'll go to penalty shootout! Even if we drag it out, we will definitely drag Brazil to death!"
Perotegui was also moved by Leandri's words at this time. He walked in front of everyone and told them: "Don't save your energy. You must fight to the last second. If you can't run anymore or have cramps, I will change players, but we must win!"
Captain Ramos and the most senior Iniesta also stood up and said, "Our fans haven't stood up for a long time because of the results in recent years. Let's fight for everyone!"
When the second half resumed, the temperament of both teams changed a bit.
At the end of the first half, Brazil became emotional because they had a great advantage but were always blocked by Leandri. Spain was also in a low state because they kept losing the ball. At this time, the audience was very curious about what the head coaches of both teams said in the locker room that could cause such a great change in the mental outlook of the players in such a short time.
In the second half, the two sides changed sides and Costa, who was inspired by Leandri, used his physical advantage to try to stir up trouble in the Brazilian penalty area.
In the 56th minute, Costa, who had been roaming for so long, finally found an opportunity. He received a pass from Asensio behind, blocked Thiago Silva's body and headed the ball into the goal!
But Alisson, who was prepared, easily caught the ball and held it in his arms.
In the 66th minute, Brazil's Fernandinho continued to attack the Spanish half with the ball.
Leandri felt much better looking at the people in the frontcourt. Koke, Axiao and others were trying their best to press high. If they lost the ball, they would fight back. If they couldn't get it back, they would try their best to return to defense to reduce the pressure on the defense.
Everyone's physical strength is declining faster than usual. This is a huge test for Spain right now, but if they can get through it, they will be reborn.
The only heroes of the Banya Dynasty left at this time were Xiaobai, Shuiye, Pique and Professor Bu. Although Leandri reaped a wave of dividends, his role at that time was purely a mascot. At this time, those players are all over 30 years old, and the future of Spain must be fought for by Leandri and other fresh blood.
Seeing his players running all over the field at full speed, Leandri did not let Neymar down. He punched out Neymar's shot with both hands and then quickly grabbed the ball and hugged it.
Leandri, who was carefully looking at the frontcourt position trying to find an attacking opportunity, completely ignored Neymar, who was beside him with a look of frustration and anxiety.
The offensive players generally hope to score a winning goal as soon as possible. Neymar feels that he is in good shape today, but there is an even more powerful Leandri blocking in front of his goal. Anyone with a discerning eye can see that Spain is not Brazil's opponent, but they just can't take the lead. As time goes by, the Brazilian team becomes more and more anxious.
But this is not a big deal in Spain. No matter whether the players are willing to admit it or not, Leandri is the backbone of the team at this time. Xiaobai is old and just wants to do his best for the team. He will not say anything about Leandri at all. Ramos will not do that either. No matter inside or outside the team, although the two of them always fight and play around, Leandri will always respect him as the captain in serious situations. Since Leandri was a child, he has been surrounded by Casillas, Ramos and others. Shui Ye still remembers that when Benítez criticized Casillas, Leandri was the first to stand in front of him and said that he would always respect the captain and was even willing to be his substitute. Shui Ye will always remember that his younger brother always took his affairs seriously. The best proof of this is that the funny story about his college entrance exam has not been spread out until now.
More importantly, Leandri has earned his position through his own efforts. Even though he failed to start in three consecutive major tournaments, his qualifications are there, and now he can be said to be the biggest leg in the whole of Spain. Since Leandri just said that he would drag Brazil to death even if it takes a long time, why are they still panicking? Isn't everything going according to Leandri's plan now?
And the more this happened, the more the anxiety on the Brazilian players' faces became visible, and it seemed as if the Spanish players had all the strength in their bodies.
When the regular season game ended, the score between the two sides was still 0-0. At this moment, the eyes of the whole world were on the goalkeeper who was looking up to drink water.
They watched the game minute by minute and knew better than anyone that the intensity of these 90 minutes should not be reflected by such a blank score. There was no problem with Brazil's offensive system today, but the most unreasonable person today was Leandri. The injured goalkeeper had saved countless goals for the opponent today and he dragged Spain into overtime.
After the team doctor treated the injury again, Perotegui put his arm around Ryan's shoulders and couldn't help but shout loudly, "Ryan, can you still hold on, Ryan?!"
Perotegui felt a little bit sorry for the situation. He had never seen Leandri fight to such an extent. In the second half alone, Brazil had 14 shots on target in 45 minutes, and Leandri blocked them one after another. Not only that, the offensive opportunities that Isco and Costa finally had were all created by Leandri's passes.
In this era of increasingly balanced football development, players in each position have a reasonable and clear division of labor, but today Leandri was clearly overloaded with on-field responsibilities. After 90 minutes like this, Perotegui knew that he should not make more demanding demands on Leandri.
Leandri just nodded. He was too tired. He kept licking his lips after hearing the coach's voice. "Okay, I'll be fine. Trust me. If we really wait until the last five minutes, we have to prepare for a penalty shootout in advance."
The overtime officially began. Before the game, no one would have thought that the match between Banyao and Brazil would be so exciting. The offensive Brazilian team was dragged into the overtime by Spain, which was still in the pain of transformation.
Even though both sides had consumed a lot of physical energy, everyone tried their best to continue the pace of the game. Brazil wanted to win so badly that they were not willing to accept the fact that they had not scored a single goal yet when they had such an advantage.
15 minutes later, the two sides were still tied, and the two teams changed sides again.
In the 113th minute, the best chance of the game finally came. Augusto, who came on as a substitute, carried Nacho and made a cold shot in the penalty area. The ball flew out of the baseline, but the whole stadium was boiling.
The camera kept switching between the ecstatic Brazilian players, the frustrated, painful and unbelievable Pique, and the calm-faced Leandri.
Pique handball!
Ramos tried his best to plead for mercy, but the referee, after referring to VAR, firmly drew the frame with both hands and pointed to the penalty spot.
Penalty!
With seven minutes left in extra time, Brazil got a valuable penalty opportunity.
At this moment, there was jubilation among the Brazilian fans in the stands. It was a penalty kick. After more than a hundred minutes of such agony, they were finally one step closer to advancing.
Neymar couldn't help but hug his teammates to celebrate. He tried to calm down and walked to the penalty spot to position the ball. For so many years, he has not been able to kick the ball into the goal guarded by Leandri, but today he will step on the prince of Real Madrid to grab a ticket to the semi-finals.
But when Neymar looked up, he found that there was almost no emotion in Leandri's eyes. He stood there like a robot, as if he could only save the ball without emotion.
Neymar quickly calmed his mind and told himself to concentrate, concentrate, concentrate, as the chance to advance was right in front of him.
The referee blew the whistle, Neymar took two steps back and started to run, but in the last few steps he suddenly changed the frequency of his feet and then shot immediately!
But Leandri seemed to be completely unaffected by his change of rhythm. After accurately predicting the ball, he immediately dived towards the lower left corner of the goal.
Hit the blind spot!
Neymar's penalty kick was particularly strange. The ball hit the goal post and changed direction, heading straight towards the goal.
But just as the ball was about to roll into the goal line, a hand suddenly appeared above it. The ball was not stopped. Leandro used all his strength to push the ball out, and then immediately stood up and hugged the ball before everyone rushed over.
The atmosphere in the stands suddenly reversed. Brazilian fans stood there in a daze, covering their faces, while Spanish fans couldn't help but hug and celebrate with the people around them. Once again, they got the chance to move on.
Raul and Guti hugged each other as soon as Leandri saved the penalty, while Casillas and more fans next to them looked at the field with tears in their eyes.
Leandri, the child they watched grow up, has long become the most trustworthy person in the world.
The head coaches of both teams have already started preparing for substitutions. With only five minutes left in the game, they have to prepare for a penalty shootout. All the fans are also on high alert, ready to face this most brutal of competitions.
But at this moment, another person from Spain stood up.
Diego Costa, after Spain planned to bring him here, he has always had difficulty in forming a chemical reaction with the team. His long goal drought has made countless people laugh at him, but today, this handsome man used his performance to tell everyone, go away and laugh at him!
The game was about to end in overtime, and even the players on the field were ready for a penalty shootout, when an arc suddenly appeared on the field.
Busquets, who had no hope of attacking with the ball, passed the ball back. Ramos did not want to make a mistake in the face of pressure, so he followed up and sent the ball to Leandri's feet.
When everyone thought that Spain was going to start passing the ball back and continue to rely on Leandri's god-like performance today to fight for a penalty shootout, Leandri suddenly faced the ball, tensed all his muscles and kicked the last big kick of the game.
The ball was floating around, and Costa couldn't help but complain in his heart that Leandri wanted to hit the plane in the sky, but suddenly his body shuddered and he subconsciously ran to the front court.
The ball was falling faster and faster, and by the time everyone realized something was wrong, only Silva was left in front of Costa.
Blocking, leveraging, turning,
Alisson rushed over but found that Costa suddenly stopped the ball and then knocked it to the right!
Costa dribbled past the Brazilian goalkeeper and scored into an empty net. Spain miraculously advanced again!
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